On Sep 23, 2007, at 7:43 PM, billy jim wrote:
OK Vaj, I'm going to enter the fray here.
The way this conversation is preceding you’re going to get tired
soon from the suffocating squeeze of the pythoness. (I actually
mean this as a complement to Judy.) Then the conversation will
attenuate into a final pair of mutual - “the pox on your house,
dear”. This is not only boring - it is unilluminating. And, being a
fool’s fool, I only exist for the dazzling radiance that others of
real worth, like you and Judy, can shine on my miserable bug-like
existence.
Help me out here, Vaj - illuminate me. I’ve heard this argument
from you before and I never could decide which sutra-s of Patanjali
you are directing our attention toward - above all because I’m
overwhelmed by your ocean-like compassion to save us from our
slavish adulation of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. (And who is this Mr.
Varma who you keep talking about?)
So … let me try to restate your referenced argument in simplified
form – one that even a fecal larvae like me can understand:
TM practitioners, particularly brain-washed TM teachers, falsely
identify their direct, unmediated experiences of utter difference
between pure-consciousness (purusha) and the intellect (buddhi-
sattva) as kaivalya (aloneness of pure consciousness).
However, kaivalya is described by Patanjali (Pada II.25) as the
disappearance of ignorance (avidya) and the consequent ceasing of
the correlation (samyoga) between the seer and the seen.
The experiences of TM’er are NOT kaivalya but rather are transient
flashes of viveka-khyati, or the “vision-of-discernment” between
purusha and prakriti.
So, Vaj, is this an accurate description of your argument against
TM claims vis-à-vis Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras?
No, not quite, we were referring to some old comments of Tom.
